In one corner of the parlor there was a platform, from which charades and private theatricals had been acted on some previous evening, and to this the Lad was escorted; and strange to say his awkwardness had departed from him.  His form was straight.  His head was lifted.  His shambling gait steadied itself with firmest confidence.  His long arms sought no longer feebly to hide themselves, but held the package that he carried in fond authority of gesture, as a proud mother, whose pride had banished bashfulness, might carry a beautiful child.  So the Lad went toward the dais, and, seating himself in the chair, proceeded with deliberate tenderness to uncover the instrument.

An old, dark-looking one it was.  The gloom of centuries darkened it.  Their dusk had penetrated the very fibre of the wood.  Its look suggested ancient times; far climes; and hands long mouldering in dust.  It was an instrument to quicken curiosity and elicit mental interrogation.  What was its story?  Where was it made?  By whom, and when?  The Lad did not know.  It was his mother’s gift, he said.  And an old sea-captain had given it to his mother.  The old sea-captain had found it on a wreck in the far-off Indian Ocean.  He found it in a trunk—­a great sea chest made of scented wood and banded with brazen ribs.  And in the chest, with it, it was rumored the old mariner had found silks, and costly fabrics, and gold, and eastern gems,—­gems that never had been cut, but lay in all their barbaric beauty, dull and swarth as Cleopatra’s face.  Thus the violin had been found on the far seas—­at the end of the world, as it were, and in companionship of gems and fabrics rich and rare; and in a chest whose mouth breathed odors.  This was all the Lad knew.

“Henry,” said the old Trapper, “the Lad says the fiddle is so old that no one knows how old it is; and I conceit the boy speaks the truth.  It sartinly looks as old as a squaw whose teeth has dropped out and whose face is the color of tanned buckskin.  I tell ye, Henry, I believe it will bust if the Lad draws the bow with any ’arnestness across it, for there never was a glue made that would hold wood together for a thousand year.  And if that fiddle isn’t a thousand year old, then John Norton is no jedge of appearances, and can’t count the prongs on the horns of a buck.”

[Illustration:  “The Lad began to play.”]

At this instant the Lad dropped the bow upon the strings.  Strong and round, mellow and sweet, the note swelled forth.  Starting with the least filament of sound, it wove itself into a compact chord of sonorous resonance; filled the great parlors; passed through the doorway into the receptive stillness outside; charged it with throbbings—­thus held the air a moment; reigned in it—­then, calling its powers back to itself, drew in its vibrating tones; checked its undulating force; and leaving the air by easy retirement, came back like a bird to its nest and died away within the recesses of the dark, melodious shell from whence it started.